Abby Girl Sweets Cupcake Review

If you googled best cupcakes in Cincinnati, Abby Girl Sweets should be the first name on the search!

A friend of mine knew I was going to be in the cincinnati area  and knew I wanted to do a cupcake review so they brought me a cupcake from this cupcake shop.

From the moment I opened the cupcake box and picked up the cupcake, I knew I was in for a real treat!

First, it was a chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake (MY FAVORITE)!

Second, just by the touch of the cupcake I knew it was very fresh and very moist.

I was totally blown away by how awesome this cupcake tasted. Everything about this chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake was exactly what I look for in a cupcake. It was moist and not crumbly. You could taste the chocolate in the cupcake. You had the full peanutty taste of peanut butter in the frosting.  The sugar in the frosting enhanced the peanut butter flavor rather than over bear the peanut butter flavor.

It has been a long, long time since I was blown away by the flavor of a cupcake. I think the last time was the Mexican Vanilla cupcake at Suzy Beez in Houston, Tx. I went back to Suzy Beez's cupcake shop 3 times over the course of a year trying to get that cupcake again and they never had it available.

I would definitely recommend Abby Girl Sweets to anyone I know in search of awesome cupcakes in the Cincinnate area!

 

I cannot wait to go back to Cincinnati to visit the store myself and have a cupcake tasting party!



Manna Cafe Cupcake Review

I decided to share my love of cupcakes with my longtime friend and her family on a recent visit to Cincinnati, Ohio.  To do our Cincinnnati cupcake review, we chose a cupcake cafe close to my friend's house.  Manna Cupcake Cafe is about 40 minutes outside the City of Cincinnati. It is located in a cute country town right next to a train station.

Manna Cafe Cupcakes had seven different cupcake varieties and three different sizes. The flavors were; vanilla raspberry filled, bon bon chocolate filled with chocolate ganache, monkey cinnamon, red velvet, chocolate and vanilla their special cupcake of the day was a key lime.  Because we wanted to try one of each we opted for all minis except for the key lime which wasn't offeren in a mini size.

Everyone agreed all the mini cupcakes were on very dry side.

We all liked the key lime and the raspberry so much we decided to try the medium size in hopes that the cupcake was a little more moist. Much to our taste bud's delight the medium size cupcake in several flavors were more moist than the minis of the same flavor. The frosting on most of the cupcakes were on the sweeter side but not so bad that you felt like you were eating a spoonful of sugar sweet.

Out of all 8 of us cupcake tasters we all decided that the 2 best cupcakes for our cupcake review from Mannas Cupcake Cafe were:

The Raspberry Filled Cupcake 

 The sugared raspberry on top tasted perfect

The Key Lime Cupcake

Just the right tart and sweet combination

Both of the frostings on these two cupcakes were very light and fluffy and not nearly as sugary as the other cupcakes.

The owner of Mannas was very friendly and informative on all her cupcake.

Cupcakes, Charleston, SC Review

http://www.freshcupcakes.com/

I found this cute cupcake shop on my way back to the bus stop after my downtown charleston excursion.  When I entered the shop, it reminded me of an ice cream parlor, pretty pastel colors painted the shop. I especially loved the big selection of cute cupcake T-shirt and other cupcake items like coffee mugs and pink spatulas.  Their display had about 9 different flavors.  They also had signs advertising mini and mega cupcakes, but I didn't see any. I didn't read up on this shop's reviews so I asked the cupcake counter girl what was her favorite.  She said as everyone says.."Red Velvet is the most popular, and the orange cremecicle is very good."  I ordered a orange cremecicle and a cinnamon swirl to change things up.  The cupcakes we're just over $3 a piece. My first taste went to the orange cremecicle as I had made my own batch once and they we're so yummy.  I tasted the frosting first. The frosting was an overpowering thick sweet sugar frosting with a hint of orange flavoring.  One small taste was all I needed.  The cupcake tasted like a dry  poundcake with a barely recognizable orange flavor.  I then tried the cinna$on swirl, this time I tried the cupcake first.  This cupcake was definitely more moist, but it tasted exactly like the orange poundcake cupcake but with a hint of cinnamon and the frosting tasted exactly like the orange sugar sweet frosting except with a hint of cinnamon.  I know many people love sugar sweet frosting especially southerners they have, as we all know,  perfected sweet tea.  I just prefer a light fluffy frosting. 

Baked House Bakery Review

Today I had a layover in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. With a few hours to kill I decided to put Charleston on my map of Cupcake Shop Reviews. When I google mapped "cupcakes" Baked House Bakery showed up on the map. When I arrived at Baked House Bakery, the bakery was very warm and welcoming. There were several cakes on display as well as various other baked goods. There were only 3 flavors of cupcakes to choose from and 1 flavor was in the refrigerated display case. I ordered a salted caramel which was at room temperature and a lemon cupcake which was in the refrigerated display. I wanted to eat dinner before I ate my cupcakes so I took them to go. The cupcakes were priced around $3.00 each. I walked for about 15 minutes. The temperature outside was near 90. When I finally got a chance to taste the cupcakes, the frosting on the salted caramel had melted. The lemon cupcake was still intact. The salted caramel cupcake was moist and although the frosting was a watery mess it still tasted pretty good. Not sure if I would classify it as a salted caramel but it was very tasty. The lemon cupcake frosting was light, fluffy and just the perfect amount of sweetness. Unfortunately the cupcake itself was very dry. I do not think this cupcake was fresh. I do believe that had this cupcake been fresh it would have been quite tastey.

Cake Love Review

Our time in the DC area is more precious now since our jobs have taken us away from the area ( I actually enjoy the time away but miss the area's cupcakes). Today was a rare day that Tony and I were together in the DC area and what better thing to do than go sight seeing and cupcake tasting! I had read a few years ago somewhere that CakeLove won some cupcake contest beating Baked and Wired.  After tasting Baked and Wired cupcakes early on in my cupcake tasting I was skeptical. Baked and Wired cupcakes are delicious.  Tony and I arrived at the Campbell Street location around 2:00PM.  We skipped lunch to save our taste buds for serious cupcake tasting.  When we arrived at CakeLove there were about a dozen different flavors available.  Tony ordered a chocolate lemon coconut and because I read on Yelp that the salted carmel was the best, I ordered the salted caramel.  I was looking forward to sitting down in the shop with a cup of coffee and eating my cupcake.  When I looked at the coffee pots on display, I changed my mind.  The coffee looked like it hadn't been brewed since the morning and the pots looked like they hadn't been cleaned in months (a few tablesspoons of salt, a few tablespoons of lemon juice, fill pot with ice and swirl.  In a matter of seconds you have a sparkling clean coffee pot).  



Chocolate Lemon Coconut
 Salted Caramel

A bit disapointed we sat at our table and right before we opened our box of cupcakes we noticed several signs displayed around the store "eat cupcakes at room temperature". We thought the sign meant that if you took the cupcakes home and put them in the refrigerator to let them thaw first.  When we opened the box and attempted to eat the cupcakes we JUST bought, we realize that the sign really meant when you bought them "fresh" from the store.   These cupcakes were hard as a rock cold! Sort of frozen.  Who goes to a bakery and "waits" for something to thaw? We decided not to make this trip a total bust, packed up our cupcakes and headed to lunch, hoping our cupcakes will be thawed by the time we finish eating lunch.  An hour later, our cupcakes sitting at room temperature (like the sign said), they were still not thawed.  When they were thawed enough to eat, the taste and texture was disappointing.  The cupcakes were dry, I'm sure that if these cupcakes were not ever frozen or chilled, they might have been tasty.  The frosting on the chocolate coconut was not memorable and the lemon dollop on top took over the taste of the barely there coconut.  The salted caramel (I just don't get the whole salted caramel craze) was a basic vanilla cupcake with a basic vanilla butter cream with a drizzle of caramel and a few bites with a hint of salt in them.



I honestly do not like to leave negative reviews.  I think that any person who opens a cupcake shop rocks! I wish them all the luck in the world and I would love to give them as much positive exposure as possible.  However, if a cupcake shop is going to charge gourmet prices the cupcakes, the cupcake shop better deliver gourmet cupcakes. I am tired of spending good money on a "gourmet" cupcake that tastes like generic supermarket cupcakes. 

Sweetz Bakery review

I was walking through the Dulles Town Center today watching all the after Christmas shoppers and I remembered there was a cupcake kiosk in the food court.  Tony and I had visited them once before but it was so long ago that I had forgotten which flavors we ordered.  Sweetz Bakery had a nice variety of cupcakes and a good selection of gluten and dairy free ones too. They have a huge selection to pick from on their online ordering list on their website.  All the neatly lined rows of individually packaged cupcakes looked delicious and flavor combinations sounded so good.  I was greeted by a smiling, friendly girl. I asked her what her favorite one was and she immediately said "the chocolate peppermint".  I am not a big fan of peppermint but, she seemed pretty confident about her choice.  I decided to take her word and order the chocolate peppermint.   The chocolate cupcake was very moist.  It had a vanilla buttercream frosting, topped with crushed peppermint.  The frosting could have had a hint of peppermint in it.  I couldn't tell if I was tasting the frosting or the crushed peppermint.  The frosting was delicious either way.  I have to admit I was afraid the peppermint was going to take over the entire cupcake but it didn't. The crushed peppermint was mixed with crushed candy melts I think. That made all the difference in the world. It was a perfect combination.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was even a cream filling inside the cupcake as well.  The chocolate cupcake was so moist it really didn't need a filling.  Sweetz also has a really neat cupcake club that you can order a dozen of cupcakes each month to be delivered to a loved one. They have a 3, 6, and 12 month program.  I thinks its a great concept.  The only downfall is that it's local delivery only.  If you are ever in the area I would definitely recommend you to stop by and grab a cupcake to go along with your starbucks coffee

Sweetz Bakery
Chocolate Peppermint